Politics - Voting Day

Politics - Voting Day

I have returned from voting. I have no selfie picture to show you, instead: I received my ballot and went behind the screen, then took a moment to observe it, and realized that it had been marked already. Concerned I took the ballot back to my polling volunteer and showed him. He immediately agreed and provided me a new ballot, destroying the old one. I took that one behind the screen and again observed the same markings. Both ballots had been marked under the Conservative candidate's name, Alice Wong.

I was suspicious and returned, a number of us checked through the unmarked ballots and discovered that every ballot in their small book (Perhaps a dozen ballots) had been similarly marked. His partner noted that the markings were not exactly in the bubble, and thusly should not count.

I said to him then: "Let us not be lazy in the defence of democracy. The books cost nothing. Get another one, and there will be no confusion."

They produced a new book of ballots, I received an unmarked one, and exercised my civic duty.

It's raining in Richmond right now, but I feel good.

Get out there and vote friends. And be vigilant. Don't let your voice be taken from you.

Politics - Budget

Politics - Budget

Let's talk about the budget. So there's been a lot of people, myself included talking at length about how the Conservative government is running deficits and running up public debt. In the face of that, the common rebuttal is "But he's running a balanced budget projection for 2015!"

So let's look closely at that, because it deserves attention.